It's changing my truck setup and tool choices. Is this happening everywhere or just my area?
A customer asked if our solar setup would bother the nesting birds in their trees. I started adding a bit more clearance under the arrays to give them space. How do you handle wildlife issues on your job sites?
I used to love spending evenings drawing out panel arrays and wiring routes with colored pencils. These days, it's all done on a tablet with apps that auto-calculate everything. I still have that old sketchbook, and flipping through it reminds me how much simpler the tools were back then.
We had just secured the last panel on a seaside property when we noticed the gulls gathering. By dawn, they had constructed elaborate nests in the gap between the panels and the roof, using our wiring clips as nesting material. We spent hours gently relocating them while the client filmed the whole thing for social media, calling it 'solar symbiosis'. Our project timeline stretched by two days, but at least the videos went viral.
The thermal cycling last summer caused a nasty crack in the conduit, leading to water ingress. Always factor in expansion gaps, especially on south-facing exposures, and use flexible couplings at intervals.